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Saturday, 11 March 2017

Could you think of a more suitable Foreign Minister for Israel?

A good well researched story by Richard Silverstein
of Tikkun Olam on the pedigree of Israel’s fascist foreign minister. A former night club bouncer from Moldova, he
beat up a 12 year old child and was convicted in Israel. But none of this stopped him from being
elected, along with other racists, to Israel’s Knesset Previously he has been known for extreme
anti-Arab racism including wishing that thousands of Palestinian prisoners
might be drowned in the Dead Sea. See Lieberman Blasted for Suggesting Drowning
Palestinian Prisoners

While it
is well known perhaps to Israelis, few outside know that Avigdor Lieberman,
whom Israel’s new prime minister is poised to name as foreign minister, plead
guilty in 2001 to beating a child. I’d heard of this story but never read
any news coverage about the event nor read a confirmation that Lieberman was
actually convicted.

One of my
readers challenged my claim that he was and another confirmed that he had
been. But I still could find no reference in Google or the Haaretz
English language site. So in the interest in filling that gap on the
English web, I decided to write this post. Of course, an added important
element is letting the world know that Israel’s likely next foreign minister is
a convicted child beater.

The
September 25, 2001 Haaretz reports (translated from Hebrew):

Lieberman
acknowledged yesterday in the Jerusalem District Court that he attacked a 12
year old boy from the Tekoah settlement, who had hit his son. He was
charged with assaulting and threatening him. Lieberman was convicted
based on his own confession in the context of a plea bargain. His
attorney asked the judges, in the context of the arrangement, to restrict his
punishment to a fine [17,500 shekels] and the defendant’s promise that he will
not commit such an act in the future.

Lieberman - Israel's fascist Foreign Minister

The
beating occured in December, 1999 at the Nokdim settlement. His son told
him that three boys hit him. Lieberman located one of the boys in a
trailer and hit him in the face. After the boy fell and was injured, the
defendant grabbed him by the shirt-collar and arm, took him back to his
parent’s home in Tekoa and threatened that he would attack him again if he
returned to Nokdim.

Another
article notes that the
complainant received his head injury when he was thrown into a wall by
Lieberman.

The
article notes that one of the reasons the prosecutor accepted the plea bargain
rather than pursue the matter to trial was that Lieberman’s actions were not
“characteristic” of his normal behavior. I guess she momentarily forgot
he’d been a nightclub bouncer in Moldova and ignored his threats of death
leveled against Arab MKs semi-regularly.

Discerning
minds will recall that Lieberman has already settled on who will be his number
2 at the foreign ministry: none other than his legal “fixer” in the child
assault case, Dov Weisglass. The latter is best known for telling an
Israeli newspaper, while he was Ariel Sharon’s political fixer, that the Gaza
disengagement was like “formaldehyde” which would put the peace process with
the Palestinians into a deep freeze. This Weisglass keeps coming back
like a bad penny.

Another
interesting incident from Lieberman’s recent past should prove relevant to his
ability to do his job as foreign minister: while complaining that Hosni Mubarak
refuses to visit Israel, he told the Knesset that the
Egyptian president can “go to Hell for all I care.” Would you say we have a
problem of a lack of diplomatic temperament here? Egypt is Israel’s most
important interlocutor in all matters pertaining to the Palestinians.
Having cursed that nation’s leader, how will Yevgeny be able to have any sort
of working relationship with him?

A sign of
the bankruptcy of Netanyahu’s political calculations in forming his new
government is that this incident either didn’t enter into his considerations;
or, if it did, he dismissed it. That tells you quite a bit about Netanyahu.